Innocent Eyes
by sapphire-child
Summary: He’s grown up around death so it’s not like this one should have been any different. Fast forward sixteen years and Aaron is all grown up...


Title: Innocent Eyes  
Original post date: 18th December 2005  
Spoilers: none for season 2  
Summary: _He's grown up around death so it's not like this one should have been any different…_ Fast forward sixteen years and Aaron is all grown up.  
Disclaimer: I still don't own Lost. And...yeah. Stuff. I also stole the title of this fic from the title of a Delta Goodrem song.

* * *

He's grown up around death so it's not like this one should have been any different.

But it is.

His history, from conception onwards has been remarkable.

Abandoned.

Stranded.

Kidnapped.

And all of that was still while he was still in the womb.

But it wasn't enough to prepare him for what was to come. The horrors of this place was too much for his eyes to stay chaste for long, even though they kept him in the dark for a long time. They must have known that before long the darkness of this place would touch him and there was nothing that could be done.

And yet there's something special about him that the island can't change, some inner light that never seems to fade from his eyes. The day he stopped running away and let his fear go, the supposed "monster" came to him and from that experience he learnt to understand the island better than anyone else. He never told anyone what he saw that day but they all listen to him now whenever he speaks – which isn't very often. There's something about him that's always been different but from that day in the jungle onwards…

He often muses about the supposed "real world" and what it might be like. He knows only as much as the others have told him but from what he's heard, he doesn't want to go there. Well, maybe for a visit but not to stay forever. It all sounds too complicated and strange and everything here is blissfully simple when it comes down to it.

You live you die.

As their numbers dwindled over time, the bonds between them tightened until their little community was virtually faultless. They became completely reliant on each other.

And now he embodies the best of them.

He's only one of the new ones, those born on the island, but he was certainly the first (and the last for a long time) and the other new ones look up to him, crowd around him, beg him to play with them, listen to him read for hours on end.

He's good with numbers and words but he's certainly not a hunter. He's never liked killing or death for that matter – it's not that he doesn't accept it, he just wishes it wasn't always there, looming behind someone's shoulder. He sees it as a grinning skeleton with a malicious glint in its eyes.

And now he sits alone, hoping that he might be able to evade the Grim Reapers triumphant return. It's never long before he's back again.

He's aware of his mother's presence long before she speaks but he doesn't acknowledge her. He's not ashamed exactly of the tears sparkling on his pale lashes but he doesn't feel proud that he's been so affected by this particular death.

'Hello Aaron,'

He raises his head to look at her. Out of everyone here, she's probably aged the least, mostly by keeping out of the sun. Her paper-white skin is beginning to fold into wrinkles now, slowly but surely, but she's doing better than many of the others, some of their faces were already crinkled with time when they came here and now their eyes are tired and sad.

He inclines his head a little towards her and then goes back to the waves.

'Do you want to talk or do you want to be alone?'

Choices. She _always_ gave him choices that he couldn't choose between.

He hesitated. 'Yes.'

There was a long moment.

Claire sighed.

'Yes stay or yes go?'

Aaron didn't respond and Claire nodded. 'Okay. If you need me you know where I'll be.'

She pads several steps away in the sand before turning back.

'He'd want you to move on,' she said gently. 'Grieve yes but move on quickly after that. You know what he was like, he'd rather have been forgotten than remembered badly.'

'But I don't remember him badly,' Aaron murmured. 'I'll never remember him badly.'

'I know, but he still wouldn't want you to be like this. You weren't like this with anyone else…'

'He wasn't anyone else.'

Claire regarded her son for a long moment. He was as gangly as Thomas had been but his face was hers alone and she could always tell what he was feeling.

And she could tell that right now he wanted to talk.

Or at least say _something._

She watched as he struggled with himself for a moment, the words seemed to be almost choking him, but when he spoke his voice was quite clear and not trembling with emotion at all.

'He was never like Charlie,' Aaron said pensively. 'Charlie was always so hyper, wanting to do something – highly strung even but James was...I think that's why I liked him so much. He could sit and read books for hours and not get distracted.' He smiled. 'I liked that.'

'Well Charlie's mellowing out a bit in his old age,' Claire offered with a sigh. 'Maybe he'll calm down a bit now.'

Aaron tried to suppress a smile. 'I don't think so. He's always going to be like that – it's just the way he is. And I wouldn't want him to ever be like James anyway, it wouldn't be Charlie then, would it?'

Claire regarded her son carefully for a moment and then trod softly over to muss his hair up.

'You're far too clever for your own good my boy,' she bent and kissed his hair. 'Take all the time you want and come back when you're ready.'

As she trod back along the beach, back to the others, Aaron's eyes drifted out to the ocean again.

He'd once sat in this very spot with a stack of books learning how to read on his own.

With James.

He'd only been little then, maybe four or five and the book had been too thick, the weight of it too much for him, the size of the font too small to read properly...

'_Would you just try and read it?' James had growled. 'Go on. What's the first word?'_

'_Once?'_

'_Well then the next three should be "upon a time". Come on kid, I didn't teach you all of that other stuff for nothing you know...'_

Aaron tried not to smile too much at the memory. If he ever got off the island, he decided, he'd buy every single book he could find and build a library for James.


End file.
